QS ranking profile
University of Leicester
This page presents clearly labeled QS ranking data for orientation. It does not verify programs, supervisors, funding, admission requirements, or the university's website.
- QS 2026 rank
- #326
- Down 41 places since 2025
- QS 2025 rank
- #285
- Overall score
- 42.9
Explore opportunities at University of Leicester
Browse active research positions, doctoral fellowships, and university funding calls indexed from official faculties and verified sources.
QS indicators
Reported ranking indicators
Each indicator is scored out of 100 in the same QS snapshot as the summary above.
#418 worldwide
#701 worldwide
#502 worldwide
#426 worldwide
#220 worldwide
#162 worldwide
#137 worldwide
#155 worldwide
#535 worldwide
#158 worldwide
Institution profile
How QS classifies this institution
QS groups institutions by size, subject range, and research output.
- Size
- Large
- About 12,000 to 30,000 students
- Subject range
- Focused
- Teaches a limited range of faculty areas
- Research intensity
- Very high
- Very high research output in the QS classification
- Region
- Europe
- QS regional grouping
University profile
About University of Leicester
Editorial background written for orientation. Verify programs, funding, and admission on the university's official pages.
Six themes offer a structured way to explore research
University of Leicester organises public research material through six themes: human health, earth and environment, space power and AI, heritage and culture, social justice, and molecules and materials. These themes provide a useful initial map for exploring a question that might cross disciplines. They are not individual programme descriptions. Each theme can contain work with different methods, sources of evidence, and academic settings. Use the theme to locate researchers, stories, or research groups, then identify the school, department, or doctoral setting where the work is actually organised.
The research pages also point to research degrees, the Doctoral College, research experts, and current research news. This provides several routes for moving from a broad topic to a visible academic context. A news item can reveal a current project; an expert profile can show a particular field; a school or department page explains the disciplinary setting. Read these resources together, while keeping the degree-bearing unit at the centre of the comparison. A subject label alone does not show whether a research path is a realistic fit.
The university's history gives context, not a research answer
Leicester was founded in 1921 by its community as a living memorial to people affected by the First World War. Its public identity connects this history with education, research, community engagement, and a broad range of subjects. That background can help explain the institution's public purpose, but it does not determine the direction of a particular research group. Keep historical context separate from current research evidence. The material that matters most for an individual decision is the current work described by the academic unit closest to your planned field.
This is especially important when an interest appears across more than one theme. Health can relate to molecules, environment, data, policy, or social justice; space and AI can involve technical, scientific, and cultural questions. Instead of treating the theme list as a set of fixed pathways, use it to formulate a more precise question. Then look for the researchers, departments, and projects that use comparable concepts, methods, or evidence.
Build a Leicester shortlist around evidence you can revisit
For each University of Leicester option, record the academic unit, the research theme that helped you find it, and the local work that creates the actual connection. Add a short statement of what you bring to the question. It might involve data analysis, experimental work, archival sources, public-service experience, a prior thesis, or a technical project. This should make the research relationship understandable without broad statements about the university as a whole.
Before using the record to make a decision, check the most recent programme, researcher, and group information. Research activity changes, and the local pages are usually more informative than a central theme overview. A well-supported Leicester comparison shows a direct line from your question to the visible academic setting where that question is currently being explored. The Doctoral College and theme pages give useful institutional context, while the departmental and researcher material determines whether the current work has the methodological and intellectual connection you need. This protects against confusing a broad theme with a local research path.